Writer's Group at Crystal Bridges - 2016

To start, Dr. Posey quoted several authors:

"Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends." Maya Angelou

"Successful travel writing mediates between two poles: the individual physical things it describes on the one hand, and the larger theme that it is "about", on the other.  That is, the particular and universal." Paul Fussell, The Norton Book of Travel

"As we turned and moved through the temple (the Parthenon), I wished that the illustrious men who had sat in it in the remote ages could visit it again and reveal themselves to our curious eyes - Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Socrates, Phocion, Pythagoras, Euclid, Pindar, Xenophon, Herodotus, Praxiteles and Phidias, Zuexis the painter.  What a constellation of celebrated names!   But more than all, I wished that old Diogenes, groping so patiently with his lantern, searching so zealously for one solitary honest man in the world, might meander along and stumble on our party.  I ought not to say it, maybe, but still I suppose he would have put out his light." Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad.

The idea of the "sublime" was a nineteenth-century idea inspired by the Romantic movement and refers to "a greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement, or imitation"; in many cases in nineteenth-century art and writing, the "sublime" indicated a sort of awe inspired by being at the edge of danger.

Niagra Falls were the epitome of the subline for nineteenth-century travelers.  Canadian E.H. Dewart wrote in 1864:

No words of mortal lips

Can fitly speak the wonder, reverence, joy,

The wild imagining, intense yet serene,

Which now, like spirits from higher sphere

From whom no earthly tongue has name or type,

Sweeps through my soul in waves of surging thought.

GET LOST IN THE BLUE

Get lost in the blue - cobalt, cerulean, azure of glacier ice faces as tall as 30 story buildings.  A kingdom of ice cathedrals, flat topped mesas, and deep canyons are a visual feast. The scientific explanations of the blue being caused by molecular mirrors, spectral light absorption, layers of snow, crushing pressure, are made irrelevant by the awesome beauty. 

Get lost in the thunder - cracking, sliding, splashing as huge chunks of ice calve from the glacier and crash into the sea.  Ice interacts with the seawater and bergie seltzer is heard fizzing, popping, bubbling as pre-historic air trapped in the ice is set free.  Only a mile away from the action, your boat is rocked by the mini tsunami that follows.  Your gloved hands on to the sturdy rail, you are safe, warm, and content in your down coat as icy joy overwhelms the senses.

A Sonnet is a poetry form which uses 14 lines, each with 10 syllables.  Usually these 10 syllables alternate between unstresse and stressed syllables, and the lines use one or two rhyme schemes:

• The Shakespearean rhyme Scheme: ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG

Shakespearean sonnets usually begin with observation or praise for the first two quatrains, then take a turn in the third quatrain, and end with a sort of closer observation in the last two lines.

• The Petrarchan rhyme scheme: ABBA, ABBA...then the last six can be arranged however. Example CDE EDC; CDE CDC CDC

Iambic pentameter

An lamb is made of two syllables,

with the emphasis placed on the second one.  It's naturally the way most of us speak.

Example:

At Crystal Bridges we are writing poems.

Houston suggested: Since it's February near Valentine's Day...let's write about LOVE.  It doesn't have to be romantic love or erotic love.  It can be love of another person or your cell phone, or your cat.

Example of a Sonnet by William Shakespeare

MY MISTRESS' EYES ARE NOTHING LIKE THE SUN

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun.               A

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;                     B

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;       A

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.       B

I have seen roses damasked, red and white.            C

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;                     D

An in some perfumes is there more delight               C

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.       D

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know                   E

That music hath a far more pleasing sound.             F

I grant I never saw a goddess go;                             E

My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.  F

And yet, by heaven, I think my love is rare             G

As any she belied with false compare.                   G

                  DIRT ON MY HANDS

I breathe in fresh air; the scent of clean dirt.

An oxymoron but it is so true.

Dirt on my hands is like having desert.

I want flowers, color, beauty anew.

My shovel flips it like an old book’s page;

to churn and set free the good stuff within.

Dirt on my hands I make ready the stage

for seeds from wind, or original sin.

Days without family needs are so rare.

Overwhelmed by life, I dig and I plant.

Dirt on my hands any crisis I bear.

Let them call on me - complain, cry, and rant.

Dirt on my hands; I plant anxiety.

From blessed dirt; I harvest sanity.

A quatrain is a set of four lines in a poem.  A ballad quatrain is a set of four lines where the second and fourth lines rhyme, but the first and the third lines do not.  In poetic notation, this rhyme scheme is noted as ABCB.

Example from Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner by Colridge

A    The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared.

B    Merrily did we drop

C    Below the kirk, below the hill.

B    Below the lighthouse top.

A    The Sun came up upon the left,

B    Out of the sea came he!

C    And he shone bright, and on the right

B    Went down into the sea.

A refrain, in a ballad, is a quatrain, or a portion of the quatrain, which is repeated regularly throughout the piece or in other words a quatrain that you come back to.

Special type of ballad:

A cockaigne is a kind of ballad where the subject matter is your journey to whatever heaven would be or a world where social roles and restrictions are inverted, often in rediculous ways. The cockaigne can also include details of how to get to this ideal place.

                                             1963

In that midnight blue ‘60 Chevy, my man was king.

I was a young seventeen; he was an old nineteen.

His friend, Dick, had a muscle car exactly like his.

Drag racin’ on the one ways, was the Friday night scene.

Interstate 80 was being built but didn’t go too far.

BlueCoral wax jobs gleamed in the moonlight 

As defiant twin Chevys eased ‘rounded barricades.

Thick exhaust fumes filled the night. 

Start your engine. 

Show me what you got. 

Put the peddle to the metal. 

Make it really hot. 

My bra was stuffed with Kleenex and I hoped it wouldn’t dent. 

“Wipeout” blasted on the radio as I drained a can of beer. 

My tight jeans were up in my crouch makin' it hard to breathe. 

God, my mother would just die if she knew that I was here.

Twin Chevys raced for top end, with only inches in between.

Barbie climbed out the back window into the other car.

She shouted, "I saw the Devil and he's waitin' for us."

I was suddenly sober and knew that we had gone too far.

Start your engine. 

Show me what you got. 

Put the peddle to the metal. 

Make it really hot. 

Peg the speedometers at 125 before the paved road runs out.

My heart was poundin' in my head; I felt like I could fly.

Brakes were screamin' as headlights lit the sign that read – Road Ends!

You're never more alive than when you know you're about to die. 

Start your engine. 

Show me what you got. 

Put the peddle to the metal. 

Make it really hot. 

American Haiku (Hi-Coo) is usually an observation of nature or a fleeting moment.  Haiku usually includes a turn of some kind.

Examples of Nature Haiku

Over the wintry

forest, winds howl in rage

with no leaves to blow.

It takes an ocean

and a moon, just to erase

footprints in the sand.

Examples of Momentary Observation Haiku

There is a fine line

between a glance and a gaze;

you made me cross it.

Driving to work

Annoyed by rainstorm, I pass

A farmer, thanking god

American Senryu is usually a fun observation or rather dark or a pun.  It can be a momentary slice.

Examples of Senryu

I drink brake fluid.

They say I'm addicted, but

I can always stop

Japanese poets

Overthrowing government:

is this a hai-coup?

The limerick is a five line poem with the rhyme scheme AABBA, and often humorous in either its subject or content. The first, second, and fifth lines each have three stressed syllables, while the third and forth each have two stressed syllables. Often limericks use anapestic (–^) or amphibrach (-^-) meter, with lambs (-^) frequently ending the third and fourth lines. Though Limericks probably originated in England, they have become a distinctive American form.

Example - author unknown

There once was a man from Nantucket

Who kept all his cash in a bucket.

But his daughter, named Nan,

Ran away with a man

And as for the bucket, Nantucket.

Slam Poetry is a type of spoken word poetry specifically constructed for use in competitions known as "slams". This construction primarily comes in restrictions on length, as most poetry slams only allow poems which can be performed in under 3 minutes.

Metaphorical language is quick.  For example, saying "my eyes are stormclouds" rather than "I am crying", but not referencing that metaphor again in the rest of the poem.  Metaphors are used to increase focus.  

Extended Metaphors are carried on for extended periods, sometimes through the entire piece.  

Persona Piece is a spoken work poem where the author speaks as if they are the subject of their metaphor, be it another person, an object, a place, or even an abstract concept.  

Example -  Anvils (Dear America) by Michael Lee

There are two bones in each of our forearms

They work as a tuning fork

Can you hear them ringing?

Can you hear the sound you carry in the night?

The poem goes on and you can read it further down on this page.

Once you have your poem...edit...edit...edit.  Make sure it's the best it can be by cutting out anything unnecessary.  Make sure the opening lines of your poem are attention-grabbing.  They need to sound like the beginning of a story your audience would be interested in listening to, or a conversation worth having.  They should hit of something bigger to come.  Some examples of great first lines:

"It will be loud.  Make no mistake about it, when you aim your shotgun at your own jaw and shoot, there will be neither harps nor a choir of angles, you will hear everything but: there's a reason they call it a boomstick." - Good Goast Bill, It will be Loud

"The patron saint of your heart is a wet paint sign, is a tin ribbed plaque with the strength of a lighthouse proclaiming: Do not come any closer; this is not ready to be touched." - Carlos Wiliams, Wet Paint

Next, make sure your lines show rather than tell.  Instead of stating a feeling, describe the actions that will make your listener infer those feelings. For instance, don't say "she felt sad", instead say, "she sighed, looked at the floor, blinked until the tears cleared from her eyes".

Finally, go through the poem line by line, saying it out loud, and ask yourself what each line is doing to further the poem. Is it stating action:  Painting a picture: If the line doesn't serve great purpose, improve it or cut it.  If there are lines which serve a purpose but seem difficult or unnatural to say, though lines likely need to be reworked.

With these things in mind, share your poem with other writers around you for constructive feedback.  When giving feedback, talk about what you like, and don't talk about what you dislike without also proving some idea on how to improve it.

A good poetry performance is one that sounds like your natural way of speaking, only a bit more intense and animated, and with more variation between your rises and falls in voice. It also means trying to connect with the emotion of your piece every time you perform it. When you begin to perform, try acting like you're reading your poem to a child, including the animation and over enunciation - then go from there.

If you're performing with your piece still on paper, it's important to hold the paper up at about the level of your sternum, and at a 45 or closer to parallel with the ground. This keeps the paper high enough that you aren't speaking to the floor, and minimizes the amount of your body the paper covers - both will help you feel more engaging to an audience.

When performing poems, don't ever start off by explaining what your poem is, or what it's about -just do the poem.

Once you've got the piece memorized, you can start paying attention to your eyes and hands. With your eyes, it's best to look at someone in about the middle of your audience. If eye contact makes you feel uncomfortable, look at hair or a shirt instead. Move from one person to another as you move to different sections of the piece, to make sure there's not a part of the audience that feels left out, or that you're creepily staring at one person. With your hands, try and gesticulate in a way someone who talks using their hand often would, or someone speaking to a child. If there is counting in your poem, count with your fingers; if there is a specific body action mentioned, pantomime a version of that action, even if it's a slightly subdued version. Make your body part of the story you are telling.

If you have a piece memorized but forget it while on stage, back up the poem and start over from the beginning of the most recent section. Do this a couple of times, if need be. If you do it three times and can't seem to pick it up, jump ahead to the next section you know. No matter what, don't let messing up a line destroy your confidence - an audience would rather you drop a line but keep your confidence than have to listen to you rush through the rest of the piece or do it with less energy.

The easiest way to memorize a poem is to break it into pieces. Poems often naturally beak themselves into portions that are each about 20 to 40 second long when spoken out loud. Divide your poem into sections, then take one day on each of these sections, and then another on combining them with what you know.  Here is the first part of the poem from last month's workshop, broken up into it's first three sections:

Anvils (Dear America) by Michael Lee

A

There are two bones in each of our forearms

They work as a tuning fork

Can you hear them ringing?

Can you hear the sound you carry in the night?

This morning, I awoke to an old echo

Crawling from me

As though I was full of hibernating things.

I gathered as many anvils as I could find,

I arranged them before of me like drums,

took a hummer up in each fist,

And I began to play

B

And after every clang

My arms shivered like taut ropes

And that sound grew louder,

The tolling of church"bells""

A wedding toast among blacksmiths,

I raised them to my ears,

I swore

I could hear John Henry swinging inside me.

I could hear A lost art,

A culture of building,

Letting blood, drip into the mouth of craft,

And every swing

I searched so desperately to hear

An America that believed in the sanctity of labor,

And every swing I'm reminded

This America has never existed.

C

Whether you have cotton or apples or coals or railroad tracks in

your blood,

Your sweat is a language this country is trying to forget.

It is a language we are told to be ashamed of,

To practice between lamplight and dusk.

We are told to bury our vocation between neckties and suits.

The only history I trust is the one written by calloused hands,

Written by a laborer we named a street after and called it ever.

So, to memorize this, your plan would be:                           

Day 1: Section A

Day 2: Section B

Day 3: Section A & B

Day 4: Section C

Day 5:Section A,B,&C etc

Dividing a piece up like this can make it manageable to memorize even if you don't have much time. Practice when driving to and from places, in the shower, when you wake up and just before you fall asleep; any moment you have when you can speak out loud can work.

Now that you have a piece you've written, practiced performing and begun memorizing, why not share it? There are plenty of places to go:

 Open Mics

Open mics are usually open to poetry, though you may want to check first to make sure they aren't music-only. Often times just being the person that does something besides music is enough to get the audience interested! Be aware that open mics which are specifically for writers will generally be more quiet and respectful, while open mics in bars will often be more rowdy and difficult to keep the attention of (though potentially more rewarding if you can!).

Writers' Groups

Writers groups are a great place to practice your new poem and will do a good job of encouraging you to keep writing, though they may not be the ideal place for critique and feedback since they are usually so nice. Some good local groups for this are the Ozark Poets and Writers Collective (in Fayetteville) and the Artists Retreat Center (in Bella Vista).

Poetry Slams

Poetry slams are specialized competitions where you have to perform two (or more) pieces and the audience grades your performances with numbers. If you want a really good idea of how well your piece connects with a diverse audience, this is the place to go! The local poetry slam is Last Saturday Fayetteville.

OTHER WRITING TIPS 

• • • Don't let your writing be stiff.  Make it like you are talking to your friends and telling a story.  

    • Strengthen the links between sections and find parallels.

    • Research your subject and find support for metifores.

    • You may want to write in first person...why I'm a teacher etc...

    • If your writing incorporates stories, start with the stories and then connect to the present.

    • Set up characters and then throw them into the world.

PERFORMING TIPS

• • • Don't explain what your poem is about just do it.  The poem should explain itself.

    • Talk with your hands.

    • Make eye contact with each member of the audience.

    • If you get lost go back to the last part you remember and then go forward.

    • Don't hold the paper in front of your face if you are reading.